Olympic Basketball and summer tournaments

HomeRunBaker

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I’m assuming there’s a fairly large time commitment, so if you’re Cooper Flagg, why would you waste any bandwidth on reorienting your game to 3x3 and training with a team for it instead of working on your 5x5 pro career? And why risk injury for this?

Furthermore, if you’re an NBA player who’s not an all star, why risk professional embarrassment? There are lots of reasons to not do it, and the only reason to do it is to get a JV medal. You have to have a certain level of desperation to go out for it, hence Jimmer
There is no reorienting as players play halfcourt in practice constantly. The majority of a college or professional practice is halfcourt sets. He’s also playing collegiate next year so under this assumption he should pull a Jalen Johnson and leave Duke to not risk injury. Regarding the latter….I’m actually not opposed to a top player going this route but that’s a different conversation.

If a player considers representing the USA as a “JV medal” then I’d question everything about that player. I’d guess very few would consider a Gold Medal “JV” if USA Basketball committed to it being a part of their program.

If you’re not an NBA All-Star that is all the more reason you’d go to build your brand and gain sponsorships. That excuse doesn’t fly to me.
 

CoffeeNerdness

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3x3 isn't some event that just pops up for the Olympics. There's a World Cup. There are regional Cups. There's a World Tour and youth divisions. The players that end up on the team grind there way to the Olympics. IMO, having these guys and gals put in all the work to reach the pinnacle of their sport only to be replaced at the last minute by some pros is counter to the Olympic spirit. Is one more gold worth shitting on all the hard work these people put in?

This sport is far more established that people seem to understand >

https://fiba3x3.com/en/index.html

Jimmer is the #1 ranked player >

https://fiba3x3.com/en/rankings/individual.html
 

Awesome Fossum

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And this American 3x3 team isn't just a random group of scrubs, they've been playing together for three years. They're an organized group of scrubs.
 

HomeRunBaker

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3x3 isn't some event that just pops up for the Olympics. There's a World Cup. There are regional Cups. There's a World Tour and youth divisions. The players that end up on the team grind there way to the Olympics. IMO, having these guys and gals put in all the work to reach the pinnacle of their sport only to be replaced at the last minute by some pros is counter to the Olympic spirit. Is one more gold worth shitting on all the hard work these people put in?

This sport is far more established that people seem to understand >

https://fiba3x3.com/en/index.html

Jimmer is the #1 ranked player >

https://fiba3x3.com/en/rankings/individual.html
This is all great stuff that I wasn’t aware of but is this any different than Team USA until NBA players were allowed to compete? We had no problem fielding a team of the best players for 5x5 so why not 3x3? Maybe this loss will lead to something similar?
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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One thing that I don't think has been brought up is in order for a player to play in FIBA 3X3, they have to be ranked - the team has to have 2 players ranked in the top 10 and 2 in the top 50 based on ranking points. Who can participate? - FIBA 3x3. As NBA players don't play in any FIBA tournaments, they are not ranked and are thus ineligible.

I think people are underestimating how much work the current team has put in to put the USA in this position. According to this article - USA Basketball 3x3 Men’s National Team Announced for 2024 - FIBA.basketball - the four started playing together in 2022, where they brought home the gold medalat the FIBA 3x3 Men’s AmeriCup 2022. Subsequently, the foursome won the gold medal at the 2023 Pan American Games and silver at the 2023 FIBA 3x3 World Cup. They also "represented USA Basketball as Team Miami on the 2023 FIBA Men’s World Tour. Accomplishments on the pro circuit include becoming the first American team to win a World Tour event since 2019 (FIBA 3x3 Cebu Masters and FIBA 3x3 Abu Dhabi Masters). Overall, as Team Miami, the U.S. men recorded four top-3 finishes on the tour."

Maybe USA BBall could figure out how to get a couple NBA players into the rankings by playing in a tournament or two but it would be interesting to see whether any player with a meaningful NBA career or hoping to have a meaningful NBA career would risk injury just for a possibility of playing. Plus, given everything the current team has done to get to this point, what would be the future repercussions be if USA BBall just replaced two players with other players who are better but didn't put in the time/work?
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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While it probably will never happen, it would be interesting if some of the Big 3 teams/players got together and decided they wanted to compete in FIBA/Olympics. One would think that the Big 3 could put together a team that would be favorites for the Gold. Not suprisingly (for example) Gerald Green seems to be a 3X3 star.

Stats – BIG3
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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None of those competitions has a nearly identical sport filled with athletes of superior skill.
There are tons of derivative events, trampoline as an offshoot of traditional artistic gymnastics being one of them. ETA: Better example is beach volleyball.

Eventually they become specialized, which is why you don’t see Carl Lewis long jump + 100m/200m multi medalists anymore.
 
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ManicCompression

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There are tons of derivative events, trampoline as an offshoot of traditional artistic gymnastics being one of them. ETA: Better example is beach volleyball.

Eventually they become specialized, which is why you don’t see Carl Lewis long jump + 100m/200m multi medalists anymore.
Understood, but the OP didn’t list those sports.

IMO, beach volleyball is quite a bit different from normal volleyball, because sand is more difficult to run around in and jump off of. If 3x3 were played in a wind tunnel or some other complicating element, we’d all look at this differently.

And I agree on your specialization comment, but no one is going to think that Jimmer Fredette is one of the top basketball players on earth if he wins a gold in this competition.
 

CoffeeNerdness

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IIRC, US is ranked 2nd in the world.

According to reports, Jimmer sought medical treatment with about 3 minutes left. This Daily Mail report mentioned that he "went into the game with an issue," whatever that is supposed to mean. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-13696455/USA-basketball-star-viral-injury-treatment-Paris.html

I haven't seen any updates.
He blew out his groin and got some rather intimate treatment on camera. They were already in trouble by the time that happened.
 

lostjumper

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Great stuff @wade boggs chicken dinner these posts answer my original question of what am I missing. Obv a lot.
Something else different about 3x3 that no one seems to have mentioned yet is that the ball is different. It's a size 6, so a women's sized ball, but weighted heavier so its the same weight as the men's ball. There is no way anyone from the NBA or most other professional leagues is going to play in 3x3 when it will require months of practice with a different ball.
 

kfoss99

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Something else different about 3x3 that no one seems to have mentioned yet is that the ball is different. It's a size 6, so a women's sized ball, but weighted heavier so its the same weight as the men's ball. There is no way anyone from the NBA or most other professional leagues is going to play in 3x3 when it will require months of practice with a different ball.
I caught a bit of Poland vs Lithuania and that helps explain the very weird looking ball. The cover texture also looks much different than an indoor college or NBA ball.
Olympic 3 on 3 doesn't look much different than playground or Y 3 on 3. It must be the nature of the game. That may have also been due to a lot of balding dudes for each club.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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Something else different about 3x3 that no one seems to have mentioned yet is that the ball is different. It's a size 6, so a women's sized ball, but weighted heavier so its the same weight as the men's ball. There is no way anyone from the NBA or most other professional leagues is going to play in 3x3 when it will require months of practice with a different ball.
Didn't realize that, so thanks for the information.

Looking it up, the Big 3 uses the same ball.

It would be interesting if the Big 3 players could play but I doubt FIBA's going to let them in without going through the qualifiers, which I presume is both a control and money issue.

Here's a decent article from 2019 that talks about the differences between 5X5 and 3X3: Canyon Barry’s indirect route from Colorado Springs to Florida Gators to 3×3 basketball gold - The Athletic (nytimes.com) .

I played one 3x3 tournament (not at the top level) many moons ago and even though we weren't playing at the top level and had one football tight end on our team, everyone ended up injured. It's amazingly physical.
 

kfoss99

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Belgium is giving Team USA Women a game; just now going into the fourth quarter.
 

reggiecleveland

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The decision to play 3x3 is a permanent one. If you notice Canada has much higher level (former national team players) than the men, becasue the men have more opportunities to make $ playing hoops elsewhere. Canada;s women are a tight group half the team are twins the other 2 are best friends. Basketball Canada has been on top of 3x3 for ten years, and still have trouble getting the top men to play, plus chemistry is vital. I know a some successful teams that add a superior player and are suddenly worse. It is a lot of fun but a real grind to get good.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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W.r.t 3X3, US men's finally won a game and looks doubtful to make it out of pool play. Plus Jimmer is hurt.

This article - https://www.cbssports.com/olympics/news/2024-paris-olympics-how-team-usa-can-fix-its-3x3-basketball-problem-in-time-for-the-games-on-home-soil/ - makes the point that FIBA rules are set up to avoid US dominance of these games. To wit:
But FIBA, which runs 3x3, wants a competitive sport and isn't interested in U.S. domination, which is already nearly assured in 5x5. So there are restrictions in place to prevent the United States from steamrolling to gold.
For myriad reasons, we can't send our very best. Much of this has to do with how FIBA operates the 3x3 circuit and Olympic qualifying. If you're hoping for the best NBA players who just missed playing alongside LeBron James and Kevin Durant on the men's national team, that's not going to happen. Jaylen Brown and Kyrie Irving won't be on standby. FIBA has a point system that prevents the U.S. from calling up four NBA All-Stars and just ruining the competition.
At least two players on the roster of four (which should be five, because one injury basically torpedos your chances; the roster max needs a tweak immediately) have to accrue FIBA points in 3x3 play over multiple events across multiple months. You get points by playing in events and bonus points by playing well in events.
Basically, half the 3x3 team has to dedicate a good portion of their lives to playing 3x3 across the world. That's not going to happen with NBA players. FIBA set up 3x3 so that small countries -- Mongolia, Latvia, Serbia -- would have a chance and could train and cycle in some of their best players to commit to this style for years at a time.

Article also has some suggestions on what the US might be able to do for 2028 but the bottom line is that someone people are going to have to really want to dedicate a lot time to getting the US the gold.
 

BaseballJones

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This Canada-Spain game is both great and a massacre. By massacre I mean that it's a hack fest and the refs are allowing so much obvious contact go. Plus Brooks took like four steps in a jump stop and even Wade was like, I don't know what that move was but it worked.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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W.r.t 3X3, US men's finally won a game and looks doubtful to make it out of pool play. Plus Jimmer is hurt.

This article - https://www.cbssports.com/olympics/news/2024-paris-olympics-how-team-usa-can-fix-its-3x3-basketball-problem-in-time-for-the-games-on-home-soil/ - makes the point that FIBA rules are set up to avoid US dominance of these games. To wit:
For myriad reasons, we can't send our very best. Much of this has to do with how FIBA operates the 3x3 circuit and Olympic qualifying. If you're hoping for the best NBA players who just missed playing alongside LeBron James and Kevin Durant on the men's national team, that's not going to happen. Jaylen Brown and Kyrie Irving won't be on standby. FIBA has a point system that prevents the U.S. from calling up four NBA All-Stars and just ruining the competition.
Kyrie Irving?
 

benhogan

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Jaylen and Kryie and me and you probably could win 3X3 gold.
With it being an Olympic sport and guys making money doing it the NBA should organize something for G-League players (who are not on a 2-way).

Post Summer League, run a bunch of 3-3 tournaments in Vegas (not the Ice Cube Nostalgia Tour) & put it on ESPN.
 

Ale Xander

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With it being an Olympic sport and guys making money doing it the NBA should organize something for G-League players (who are not on a 2-way).

Post Summer League, run a bunch of 3-3 tournaments in Vegas (not the Ice Cube Nostalgia Tour) & put it on ESPN.
McClung is eligible? Big mistake not trying him out if he is.
Get a dunker like him, a 3 point specialist and a quick big guy and the BA for your fourth guy.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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With it being an Olympic sport and guys making money doing it the NBA should organize something for G-League players (who are not on a 2-way).

Post Summer League, run a bunch of 3-3 tournaments in Vegas (not the Ice Cube Nostalgia Tour) & put it on ESPN.
I might be wrong about this but it seems like it would have to be a joint venture with USA Basketball - because the most important thing is to put together a team that will go play (and win) enough FIBA events to qualify. That's certainly a commitment.

I would think that Ice Cube could get 4 guys from his league to go do it for one cycle - they'd get a ton of publicity. For example, I would think that Gerald Green in the 2028 3X3 tournament would be appointment TV,
 

Nick Kaufman

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First off, like most Euro national teams, you can't evaluate them off the clubs they play for. They all get together way more often than the USA roster does, they play more tournaments together, and have longer-term commitments to the program, so they more resemble a team than a collection of "best available talent". I think they had a different Player of the Game for each game in the qualifier tournament. Because of them having so many reps together (mostly without Giannis), historically Giannis has really not integrated well with the Greek team, they just haven't known how to use him and sometimes haven't even played him starter minutes. I think they played against USA each of the last two FIBA World Cups and he looked like a fish out of water compared to playing for Milwaukee, like "Barely knew the playbook" level awkward.

However, they now look like they've finally figured out how to use him (he and Calathes especially have nice chemistry), and the results showed, especially against Croatia who have a great team. So the more complete answer is, you can watch and answer this for yourself!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCeGJXuJFto


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s2hd5pzWps


(for my money, it was PG Nick Calathes in the Slovenia game, and their center Papagiannis in the Croatia game. Sidenote, Luka Scuka sounds like a made-up name.)

...and while we're at it, look what qualifying means to Giannis:

View: https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1810043595153457263


But yeah if you're just going to focus on their qualifier roster (Paris rosters aren't out yet for the qualifier-winning teams), the roster is mostly from Greece's Big Two clubs (Olympiacos and Panathinaikos, who came in 3rd and 1st in the EuroLeague playoffs this year), plus AS Monaco (3rd in reg season, lost in QFs). The player with the second-most-prestigious career to date is probably team captain Kostas Papanikolaou, a two-time EuroLeague champ, former Rockets and Nuggets player (and Barcelona) who's been at Olympiacos forever. The whole roster is EuroLeague standouts though, some of whom probably could have played in the NBA if they really wanted to but were happier to remain closer to home. So, again, their roster isn't "Giannis and a bunch of guys", you need to think of it more like a high-level soccer national team, maybe Argentina, where their best player doesn't play in the leagues most of them run in, but
I won't pretend I am an expert on our team, but I 've been doing some homework due to the Olympics and I am mostly down on them.

I think saying that some of the players could have made it to the NBA but chose to be closer to home may have a grain of truth, but I suspect all of them save Giannis washed out of the NBA. Like I don't think Calathes, Papagiannis and Papanikolaou were ever able to be more than 8 or 9th options off the bench.

What really makes me down is that our 3point shooting is bad. In the qualifying tournament the team shot lights out from the 3, but most players are career 32-33% 3point shooters. FT shooting is also bad with the team shooting 62% during qualifying and 67% in the Olympics. So that's really a shame, because if you had a couple of decent shooters next to Giannis, they would have been able to open opposing defenses far more easily. As things are, I see them stagnating on offense without having any flow while Giannis carries them.

I suspect the counteracting factor is that they play strong defense as a team.

We are facing Germany in the quarters and my outsider's view is that I cannot understand how a team helmed by Shroeder and Theis managed to win both Eurobasket 2022 and the World Cup in 2023. Maybe their pieces fit well together? Some luck -which is a necessary ingredient in these tournaments?

Let's hope we pull the upset.
 

TripleOT

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FIBA set the rules so that NBA players can’t just jump into the tournaments en masse. Two of the four team members must play in a set number of 3 on 3 games. Pick two players who couldn’t link up on an NBA team, but are close to NBA quality, with the right skill set to play 3 on 3, like good three point shooting, and then put two great NBA players, preferably shooters, who didn’t make the Olympics.
 

scottyno

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FIBA set the rules so that NBA players can’t just jump into the tournaments en masse. Two of the four team members must play in a set number of 3 on 3 games. Pick two players who couldn’t link up on an NBA team, but are close to NBA quality, with the right skill set to play 3 on 3, like good three point shooting, and then put two great NBA players, preferably shooters, who didn’t make the Olympics.
They require all 4 to have played enough 3 on 3 tourneys, just 2 of them to have played more than the other 2, so you'd need 2 NBA guys that know far enough in advance to commit and give up their short off-season while risking injury and fatigue learning a new version of their sport at a high level
 

Ale Xander

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Maybe get recently retired players? What about a team of Iggy, Griffin, Rudy Gay, and George Hill? Or my dream, Gordo
 

Awesome Fossum

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Fredette getting hurt killed them. I know they were winless with him, but he was supposed to be the anchor player, and without him, they literally had no bench. If that doesn't happen, they're probably still playing.

I don't think it's realistic, but partnering with the Big3 actually makes a ton of sense to me. Make one team "Team America". Ice Cube gets to sell merch and tickets off of USA Basketball. The players get a stable place to play and get paid each summer as well as experience playing together (albeit in a set up with meaningfully different rules). Would take a bit of creativity and ego-swallowing (Cube has disparaged FIBA 3X3 in the past), but could be win-win.
 

scottyno

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Maybe get recently retired players? What about a team of Iggy, Griffin, Rudy Gay, and George Hill? Or my dream, Gordo
Have you actually watched a game? It's faster paced than the NBA, I don't think guys too old and injured for a bench role in a slower paced league are the answer.
 

Ale Xander

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Have you actually watched a game? It's faster paced than the NBA, I don't think guys too old and injured for a bench role in a slower paced league are the answer.
The games are short and their skills would more than make up for any lack of conditioning.
 

scottyno

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The games are short and their skills would more than make up for any lack of conditioning.
They aren't that short if you go by possessions. Probably about as many possessions as 1/3rd of an NBA game with minimal breaks and minimal subs. Literally as soon as you score you have to already be running on defense because the next shot is going to go right up within a few seconds.

They're also playing multiple games within a few hours at times, probably more often in the qualifier tournaments that these old injured ex NBA players are going to have to do well in just to be eligible for the olympics.